Two potentially hazardous asteroids are hurtling towards Earth today. Should you worry? NASA explains.
Yesterday, Earth was buzzed by a humongous 180-foot asteroid. Thankfully, it flew safely past. Its closest approach to the Earth was 4.2 million miles. But that is not always the case! The two infamous cases of asteroid strikes that still manage to bring the terror of asteroids to the fore in our consciousness include the “Tunguska Event,” which resulted in a shockwave shearing trees across a huge region of Russia back in 1908. The second one is none other than the dinosaur-killing asteroid, which struck around 66 million years ago.
These asteroids in space travel around the Sun, but they can alter their paths due to any disturbance in the gravitational force of planets and even sometimes can collide, just like the two asteroids mentioned above. The terror continues even today, as NASA confirmed that two potentially dangerous asteroids are coming towards Earth today!
Upcoming asteroids
One of these asteroids named 2022 SK15 is as big as the asteroid that whizzed past the Earth yesterday. It is 180-foot in diameter and will come as close as 2.26 million miles to the Earth. While, the second asteroid is smaller in size, it has the same concern – it will come terrifyingly close to Earth. It is just 61-foot wide but will make the closest approach towards Earth at a distance of 2.88 million miles.
NASA keeps a close eye on all objects such as asteroids and comets and the details are provided on the Asteroid Watch dashboard on a daily basis. These include all asteroids that approach within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) to Earth or are larger than about 150 meters and these are then termed as potentially hazardous asteroids. Hence, these 2 upcoming asteroids today do come within the set range of proximity and as such have been termed as a “potentially hazardous asteroid.” So should you worry? NASA says they should fly by Earth safely back into the darkness of space.
NASA DART Mission!
Recently, NASA successfully tested its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission in which its spacecraft crashed an asteroid called Dimorphos. This was a planetary defence test by NASA, which will be used to protect Earth from asteroids that are heading for a collision with our planet. According to NASA, this is the world’s first mission to deflect an asteroid in space. The mission successfully deflected the asteroid from its path.
